Saturday, December 17, 2016

Abuja,
Nigeria, December 16, 2016-The Cameroonian government and security services
should immediately reverse a series of repressive measures that have produced a
crisis of media freedom in the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists
said today.

In
recent weeks, authorities arrested a journalist covering protests; suspended
dozens of newspapers and broadcasters permission to operate; permanently banned
three newspapers from publishing and their publishers from practicing
journalism; and sanctioned dozens more journalists. The speaker of the National
Assembly in November called the use of social media "a new form of terrorism."
The Ministry of Communications, according to media reports, last month asked
companies to cut the internet. Sixteen months after his arrest, Radio France
Internationale journalist Ahmed Abba remains in prison, awaiting a verdict in
his military trial.

"Each
day that Cameroon's government perpetrates ever-wider attacks on the press, the
more it appears repressive and desperate," CPJ West Africa Representative Peter
Nkanga said. "Cameroon should immediately and unconditionally release radio
journalist Ahmed Abba and stop trying to muzzle the media."

Masked
security officers on December 11 arrested Zigoto Tchaya, a reporter with the broadcaster France 24, after
Tchaya interviewed barrister Harmony Bobga, who articulated demands of demonstrators from
predominantly Anglophone regions of Cameroon who say the Francophone central
government has marginalized English-speaking Cameroonians, according to media reports. Tchaya was
released after a day, according to media reports. Anglophone regions of Cameroon have seen street protests,
sit-ins, and labor strikes in recent months. Last week, at least four people
were killed when police forcibly dispersed a protest in the city of Bamenda,
near the Nigerian border, according to press
reports and human rights groups.

The
Cameroonian government had previously attempted more sweeping measures to confound
the protests. The government-run daily newspaper TheCameroon Tribune on
November 1 described social media as "fast becoming a threat to peace and a secret
instrument of manipulation." Cavaye
Yeguie Djibril, the speaker of Cameroon's National Assembly, in a November 10 speech to parliament, went further, calling the use of social media
"a new form of terrorism...as dangerous as a missile," according to media reports.
According to the pro-opposition Cameroon Journal,Cameroonian
Information Minister Issa Tchiroma on November 17 met with leading mobile phone and internet
service providers to urge them to suspend access to the internet in the country.
The reported request was not implemented.

Cameroonian journalists
told CPJ that the Ministry of Communications on December 1 had written to
private broadcasters instructing them to stop broadcasting political debates.
"Owners of private radio and TV stations are called upon to stop all roundtable
discussions on their networks concerning the current political atmosphere in
the southwest region," the directive read, according to a photograph of the
document published to Twitter by Cameroonian journalist Comfort Moussa.

Meanwhile,
Radio France Internationale Hausa-service correspondent Ahmed Abba is scheduled
to appear again before a military tribunal on charges of "complicity" with and
"non-denunciation of acts of terrorism" on January 4, 2017, according to press
reports. RFI told CPJ that the journalist
was arrested on July 30, 2015, as he left a press conference, and denied access
to his lawyers until October 19, 2015, when the military tribunal asked
computer forensics experts to examine his computers and mobile phones. Those
experts have not yet returned their report, according to France
24. In the meantime, according to press reports, interrogators
questioned him about the activities of the militant group Boko Haram, which has
renamed itself the Islamic State in West Africa. If convicted, Abba could face
the death penalty, according to media reports.

On
December 6, the National Communication Council (NCC)-Cameroon's media
regulator, made up of members appointed by the president-handed down 24 sanctions imposing
varying penalties on 14 publishers and their newspapers, one radio station
managing director, and 15 journalists from 10 print and online newspapers,
radio, and television stations for reports the council called"unfounded, offensive, and
insinuating allegations"regarding government officials, business
executives, and private individuals, according to media reports and
CPJ's review of the 111-page document.

Among the most
stringent sanctions were the permanent banning of the weekly Aurore Plus and Aurore newspapers from publishing, and the imposition of a
permanent ban on the newspapers'publisher,
Michel Michaut Moussala, from practicing journalism because of the newspaper's
repeated publication of "unfounded allegations" against the former CEO of
Cameroon Airlines, according to media reports. The
weekly Dépeche du Cameroun newspaper and
Gilbert Avang, the newspaper's publisher, were similarly permanently banned,
the reports said.

Ndi Eugene Ndi, editor
of the bi-monthly NewsWatch newspaper,
told CPJ that several of the newspapers defied the suspensions to continue
publishing. Ndi said the NCC could ask courts to enforce the sanctions.

The National Union
of Cameroonian Journalists called the sanctions "unacceptable and
incomprehensible," and called for press solidarity in rejecting the sanctions,
according to media reports.

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CPJ is an independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide.